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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Carnac
2200 BC *
2200 BC is frequently referred to as a time of great social and political upheaval in the Mediterranean and what used to be called the Near East. It is also considered to mark the beginning of the Bronze Age in Central Europe(h).
Helmut Tributsch suggested that the island of Gavrinis near Carnac in Brittany had been the capital of this Atlantean civilisation(d). He dated the destruction of Atlantis to 2200 BC.
The Bronze Age in the Mediterranean region saw two periods of great political turbulence, the first, around 2200 BC and the second a millennium later, generally known as the Bronze Age Collapse.
In 2001 Professor Fekri Hassan, from University College London, studied ancient reports that so many people had died from hunger in southern Egypt that people had resorted to cannibalism. Hassan found evidence of extreme weather conditions around 2200 BC both in Egypt and further afield from a study of cores from ancient lakes(c).
According to some commentators, the Los Millares culture also ended around the same time. W. Sheppard Baird in a paper on the Sea Peoples maintains that the Los Millares culture lasted until 2200 BC and was succeeded by the Argaric named after the el Argar site.
The Oera Linda Book puts the destruction of Atlantis circa 2200 BC(f).
Two of Gavin Menzies‘ specific claims are that transoceanic travel began 100,000 years ago and that the Chinese regularly began visiting America from 2200 BC!
Dr Anton Mifsud has used the reign of King Ninus of Assyria as an anchor for his preferred date for the destruction of Atlantis, in Malta, of around 2200 BC. He points out [209] that Eumelos of Cyrene dated the demise of Plato’s island to the reign of Ninus and links this with the calculation of the Roman historian Aemilius Sura (2nd cent. BC) who placed the reign of Ninus around 2192 BC. Several other authorities attribute similar dates to his reign as recorded by John Jackson in volume one of his 1752 Chronological Antiquities [1555.251].
The collapse of the Egyptian Old Kingdom also took place around 2200 BC.
A 2022 paper(g) by Huw S. Groucutt et al. has investigated the coincidence of the ending of the Temple Building Period in Malta with the so-called 4.2 ka Event, thought by many to be the result of climate change. However, this would need to coincide with a severe seismic or tectonic event on Malta in order to support Mifsud’s theory of a Maltese Atlantis.
Timo Niroma (? – 2009) from Helsinki in Finland had an extensive website(e) in which he discussed various worldwide catastrophes including two main events around 2200 BC and 3100 BC.
In 2001, Tom Slattery published a paper(a) regarding the Comet Hale-Bopp which had been discovered 1n 1995. He speculated that it may have been seen much earlier in 2213 BC and that a fragment of it may have struck the Earth with dire consequences and may have been the trigger for the widespread collapse of civilisations around 2200! While comets are traditionally considered to be harbingers of doom, they certainly were in this instance when “thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed mass suicide in March 1997 with the intention of teleporting to a spaceship which they believed was flying behind the comet.”(b)
(a) http://www.mgr.org/comet3.html
(b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hale–Bopp
(c) BBC News | SCI/TECH | Disaster that struck the ancients
(f) https://earth-history.com/europe/book-the-oera-linda-book/1173-oera-intro
(g) (PDF) The 4.2 ka Event and the End of the Maltese “Temple Period” (researchgate.net)
(h) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0139705&type=printable
Carnac
Carnac is arguably Europe’s most visually remarkable megalithic site. It is situated near the town of the same name in Brittany. Many will have seen images of the rows of standing stones there, often unaware that there are four main sets of them close to Carnac as well as cromlechs and solitary menhirs, including the largest, Le Grand Menhir Brisé, now broken, but originally 70 ft long and weighing around 300 tons. In their 1978 book [1771.180], Alexander Thom and his son, Archie, in the conclusion to their book, in spite of their extensive studies of the stone rows, agreed that “we do not know what these were for” and although various theories have been proposed since; we still don’t.
I always thought that the stone rows at Carnac were unique, until I saw an image of a similar arrangement of stones at Vibhuthihalli at Karnataka in India. It may be pure coincidence, but the similar sounds of Carnac and Karnataka is remarkable(f)(g).
Jean Markale presumed that there was a connection between Atlantis and the megalithic standing stones of Carnac in Brittany. Rather than solve these two mysteries, his book, Carnac et L’enigme de L’atlantide (Carnac and the Enigma of Atlantis) [0470] would seem to deepen them.>Paul Johnson offered a review of Markale’s book in 1987(j).<
Helmut Tributsch suggested that the island of Gavrinis near Carnac in Brittany had been the capital of this Atlantean civilisation(h). He dated the destruction of Atlantis to 2200 BC, a date also favoured by Anton Mifsud.
Hans-Pény Hirmenech expressed the wild idea that the rows of standing stones at Carnac marked the tombs of Atlantean soldiers who fought in the Trojan War! Wikipedia notes that “A Christian myth associated with the stones held that they were pagan soldiers in pursuit of Pope Cornelius when he turned them to stone.”(a)
Hank Harrison supports the idea of a megalithic Atlantis with its centre of power, probably located in the Morbihan area of Brittany.
Based on the picture and the data present, Schulz Paulsson believes that the megaliths were first constructed by dwellers of northwest France during the second half of the fifth millennium BC.”(b) Mike Parker Pearson, Stonehenge’s leading authority, has endorsed this idea of a French origin for megalith building(c).
Neil L. Thomas in a 2021 paper(d) has studied three sites near Carnac that hold long rows of standing stones whose purpose was uncertain. Thomas concluded that they had a calendrical function relating to the sun and moon. I cannot help wondering why such extensive and labour-intensive structures were needed to achieve this relatively simple objective.
R. Cedric Leonard has published an interesting overview of the Carnac mystery, suggesting that the erection of the three rows of standing stones may have been originally connected. He further proposes that the builders of the monuments were possibly a Cro-Magnon people, namely, the Azilians.
In 2017, Arthur Faram published a short paper with the interesting title of The Carnac Stones Decoded. Frankly, I could not understand his theory at all(i).
(e) https://atlantisquestscience.wordpress.com/science/the-stones-of-carnac/
(g) Stone Alignment of Vibhutihalli | PDF | Sunset | Neolithic (scribd.com)
(i) Carnac Stones (thefaramfoundation.com)
(j) https://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/anceur/eu-john.htm *
Trojan War
The Trojan War, at first sight, may appear to have little to do with the story of Atlantis except that some recent commentators have endeavoured to claim that the war with Atlantis was just a retelling of the Trojan War. The leading proponent of the idea is Eberhard Zangger in his 1992 book The Flood from Heaven [483] and later in a paper(l) published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology. He also argues that survivors of the War became the Sea Peoples, while Frank Joseph contends that the conflict between the Egyptians and the Sea Peoples was part of the Trojan War [108.11].
In an article on the Atlantisforschung website reviewing Zangger’s theory the following paragraph is offered – “What similarities did the Trojan War and the war between Greece and Atlantis have? In both cases, the individual kingdoms in Greece formed a unified army. According to Homer, Greek ships went to the Trojan War in 1186 – according to Plato, Atlantis ruled over 1200 ships. The contingents and weapons are identical (archer, javelin thrower, discus thrower, chariot, bronze weapon, shield). The decisive battle took place overseas on both occasions. In a long period of siege came plague and betrayal. (There is not a word in Plato about a siege or epidemics and treason, dV) In both cases, Greece won the victory. After the Greek forces withdrew, earthquakes and floods struck Greece.“(t)
Steven Sora asserts that the Atlantean war recorded by Plato is a distortion of the Trojan War and contentiously claims that Troy was located on the Iberian Peninsula rather than the more generally accepted Hissarlik in Turkey. Another radical claim is that Troy had been located in Bosnia-Herzegovina or adjacent Croatia, the former by Roberto Salinas Price in 1985[1544], while more recently the latter is promoted by Vedran Sinožic[1543].
Others have located the War in the North Sea or the Baltic. Of these, Iman Wilkens is arguably the best-known advocate of an English location for Troy since 1990. In 2018, Gerard Janssen added further support for Wilkens’ theory(k).
In Where Troy Once Stood [610.18] Wilkens briefly referred to the earliest doubts expressed regarding the location of the Trojan War, starting in 1790 with J.C. Wernsdorf and followed a few years later in 1804 by M. H. Vosz. Then in 1806, Charles deGrave opted for Western Europe. However, it was probably Théophile Cailleux, a Belgian lawyer, whose detailed study of Homeric geography made the greatest inroads into the conventionally accepted Turkish location for Troy. Andreas Pääbo, who contends that the Odyssey and the Iliad had been written by two different authors, proposed that the inspiration for much of the Trojan War came from ancient Lycia. His paper proposes“that Homer had been a military official in an invasion in his time of a location, also with a citadel, further south on the coast, at what is now southwest Turkey, which was ancient Lycia. Proof of this lies within the Iliad itself, in the author’s many references to Lycia, and in particular to using an alternative name for Scamander – Xanthos – which is the river in Lycia around which the original Lycian civilization developed. This paper(u) studies the details given in the Iliad with geographical information about the location of ancient Lycia to prove this case.”
However. controversy has surrounded various aspects of the War since the earliest times. Strabo(a) tells us that Aristotle dismissed the matter of the Achaean wall as an invention, a matter that is treated at length by Classics Professor Timothy W. Boyd(b). In fact, the entire account has been the subject of continual criticism. A more nuanced approach to the reality or otherwise of the ‘War’ is offered by Petros Koutoupis(j).
The reality of the Trojan War as related by Homer has been debated for well over a century. There is a view that much of what he wrote was fictional, but that the ancient Greeks accepted this, but at the same time, they possessed a historical account of the war that varied considerably from Homer’s account(f).
Over 130 quotations from the Illiad and Odyssey have been identified in Plato’s writings, suggesting the possibility of him having adopted some of Homer’s nautical data, which may account for Plato’s Atlantean fleet having 1200 ships which might have been a rounding up of Homer’s 1186 ships in the Achaean fleet and an expression of the ultimate in sea power at that time!
Like so many other early historical events, the Trojan War has also generated its fair share of nutty ideas, such as Hans-Peny Hirmenech’s wild suggestion that the rows of standing stones at Carnac marked the tombs of Atlantean soldiers who fought in the Trojan War! Arthur Louis Joquel II proposed that the War was fought between two groups of refugees from the Gobi desert, while Jacques de Mahieu maintained that refugees from Troy fled to America after the War where they are now identified as the Olmecs! In November 2017, an Italian naval archaeologist, Francesco Tiboni, claimed(h). that the Trojan Horse was in reality a ship. This is blamed on the mistranslation of one word in Homer.
In August 2021 it was claimed that remnants of the Trojan Horse had been found. While excavating at the Hisarlik site of Troy, Turkish archaeologists discovered dozens of planks as well as beams up to 15-metre-long.
“The two archaeologists leading the excavation, Boston University professors Christine Morris and Chris Wilson, say that they have a “high level of confidence” that the structure is indeed linked to the legendary horse. They say that all the tests performed up to now have only confirmed their theory.”(o)
“The carbon dating tests and other analyses have all suggested that the wooden pieces and other artefacts date from the 12th or 11th centuries B.C.,” says Professor Morris. “This matches the dates cited for the Trojan War, by many ancient historians like Eratosthenes or Proclus. The assembly of the work also matches the description made by many sources. I don’t want to sound overconfident, but I’m pretty certain that we found the real thing!”
It was not a complete surprise when a few days later Jason Colavito revealed that the story was just a recycled 2014 hoax, which “seven years later, The Greek Reporter picked up the story from a Greek-language website. From there, the Jerusalem Post and International Business Times, both of which have large sections devoted to lightly rewritten clickbait, repeated the story nearly verbatim without checking the facts.”(p)
Various attempts have been made to determine the exact date of the ten-year war, using astronomical dating relating to eclipses noted by Homer. In the 1920s, astronomers Carl Schoch and Paul Neugebauer put the sack of Troy at close to 1190 BC. According to Eratosthenes, the conflict lasted from 1193 to 1184 BC(m).
In 1956, astronomer Michal Kamienski entered the fray with the suggestion that the Trojan War ended circa 1165 BC, suggesting that it may have coincided with the appearance of Halley’s Comet!(n)
An interesting side issue was recorded by Isocrates, who noted that “while they with the combined strength of Hellas found it difficult to take Troy after a siege which lasted ten years, he, on the other hand, in less than as many days, and with a small expedition, easily took the city by storm. After this, he put to death to a man all the princes of the tribes who dwelt along the shores of both continents; and these he could never have destroyed had he not first conquered their armies. When he had done these things, he set up the Pillars of Heracles, as they are called, to be a trophy of victory over the barbarians, a monument to his own valor and the perils he had surmounted, and to mark the bounds of the territory of the Hellenes.” (To Philip. 5.112) This reinforced the idea that there had been more than one location for the Pillars of Herakles(w).
In the 1920s, astronomers Carl Schoch and Paul Neugebauer put the sack of Troy at close to 1190 BC.(q)
In 2008, Constantino Baikouzis and Marcelo O. Magnasco proposed 1178 BC as the date of the eclipse that coincided with the return of Odysseus, ten years after the War(a). Stuart L. Harris published a paper on the Migration & Diffusion website in 2017(g), in which he endorsed the 1190 BC date for the end of the Trojan War.
Nikos Kokkinos, one of Peter James’ co-authors of Centuries of Darkness, published a paper in 2009 questioning the accepted date for the ending of the Trojan War of 1183 BC,(r) put forward by Eratosthenes.
New dating of the end of the Trojan War has been presented by Stavros Papamarinopoulos et al. in a paper(c) now available on the Academia.edu website. Working with astronomical data relating to eclipses in the 2nd millennium BC, they have calculated the ending of the War to have taken place in 1218 BC and Odysseus’ return in 1207 BC.
A 2012 paper by Göran Henriksson also used eclipse data to date that war(v).
What is noteworthy is that virtually all the recent studies of the eclipse data are in agreement that the Trojan War ended near the end of the 13th century BC, which in turn can be linked to archaeological evidence at the Hissarlik site. Perhaps even more important is the 1218 BC date for the Trojan War recorded on the Parian Marble, reinforcing the Papamarinoupolos date.
A 2012 paper by Rodger C. Young & Andrew E. Steinmann added further support for the 1218 BC Trojan War date(s),>>also coinciding with the chronology of the Parian Marble.<<
Eric Cline has suggested that an earlier date is a possibility, as “scholars are now agreed that even within Homer’s Iliad there are accounts of warriors and events from centuries predating the traditional setting of the Trojan War in 1250 BC” [1005.40]. Cline had previously published The Trojan War: A very Short Introduction [2074], which was enthusiastically reviewed by Petros Koutoupis, who ended with the comment that “It is difficult to believe that such a large amount of detail could be summarized into such a small volume, but Cline is successful in his efforts and provides the reader with a single and concise publication around Homer’s timeless epic.” (x)
However, an even more radical redating has been strongly advocated by a number of commentators(d)(e) and not without good reason.
(a)Geographica XIII.1.36
(b) https://journal.oraltradition.org/wp-content/uploads/files/articles/10i/12_boyd.pdf *
(c) https://www.academia.edu/7806255/A_NEW_ASTRONOMICAL_DATING_OF_THE_TROJAN_WARS_END
(d) Archive 2401
(e) https://www.varchive.org/schorr/troy.htm
(f) https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/the-trojan-war-in-greek-historical-sources/
(g) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?year=2017&id=509
(j) https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/was-there-ever-trojan-war-001737
(k) https://www.homerusodyssee.nl/id12.htm
(l) https://www.academia.edu/25590584/Plato_s_Atlantis_Account_A_Distorted_Recollection_of_the_Trojan_War
(m) Eratosthenes and the Trojan War | Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (archive.org)
(n) Atlantis, Volume 10 No. 3, March 1957
(o) https://greekreporter.com/2021/08/10/archaeologists-discover-trojan-horse-in-turkey/
(p) Newsletter Vol. 19 • Issue 7 • August 15, 2021
(q) https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25337041
(r) https://www.centuries.co.uk/2009-ancient%20chronography-kokkinos.pdf
(t) Troy – Zangger’s Atlantis – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)
(v) https://www.academia.edu/39943416/THE_TROJAN_WAR_DATED_BY_TWO_SOLAR_ECLIPSES
(w) https://greekreporter.com/2023/05/25/pillars-hercules-greek-mythology/
(x) Book Review – The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction by Eric H. Cline (substack.com)
Hirmenech, Hans-Pény (L)
Hans-Pény Hirmenech was the author of a 1906 book[1221], in French, in which he reviewed possible connections between the Celts, Basques and Atlantis. He claimed that Atlantis had been situated in the North Sea and that Helgoland was a remnant of it.
Hirmenech expressed the wild idea that the rows of standing stones at Carnac marked the tombs of Atlantean soldiers who fought in the Trojan War!
Hirmenech was a founding member of la Société Préhistorique Française (The Prehistoric Society of France)(a).
(a) https://www.prehistoire.org/
[I’m indebted to Stelios Pavlou for some details above.]
Vega, Manuel
Manuel Vega (1967- ) was born in Spain and studied Chemistry there and later worked as a research scientist in America and Japan. He travelled widely in the Far East before returning to the United States where he spent five years training a Buddhist monk before resuming a more secular life.
In 2012 he published Sailors of Stonehenge[868] in which he reviews the principal megalithic sites of Western Europe, including
some interesting speculation. For example he describes the English Avebury complex as a site of ‘monarchical renewal’ and proposes related ceremonies at Stonehenge. Another of what I consider his more fanciful ideas is his suggestion that Ireland’s Boyne Valley, which includes Newgrange, was used as a ‘royal funerary complex’ for dead English kings! He maintains that the location of many of these sites was determined by the position of astronomical features in the night sky.
Vega ends the book with a chapter on Atlantis, which he locates in the Atlantic and identifies the Atlanteans as the Megalith Builders. “By the end of the 4th millennium BC they designed a huge celestial mirror over the Atlantic territories, which served to regulate themselves politically and religiously (implementing Heavens on Earth). The largest and most unique constructions, such as those at Carnac, Avebury, Stonehenge and Newgrange, were royal monuments erected at key sites of this celestial mirror according to a megalithic technology designed to attain the rebirth of the sacrificed kings again as princes, keeping an unbroken royal lineage.”
* Vega returned to the subject of the megalith builders in 2015 with the publication of Voyage Zero[1443]. However, in 2017 he became even more contentious in Madrid is Atlantis[1444], which as the title implies, claims that Atlantis was located in the vicinity of the author’s native city.*
I found it very hard to accept most of his claims.
Those interested in reading more of Vega’s ideas can read his blogs(a).
Brittany *
Brittany in northwestern France is sometimes referred to as Little or Lesser Britain. It is one of the most exciting regions of Megalithic Europe. The stone rows of Carnac are unequalled, Le Grand Menhir Brisé was once the largest standing stone in Europe, while 
Morbihan contains a huge number of dolmens and standing stones.2019 saw a report that “Bettina Schulz Paulsson, an archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg, reexamined some 2,410 radiocarbon dating results that have been assigned to Europe’s megaliths and put them through a Bayesian statistical analysis. Based on the picture the data presents, Schulz Paulsson believes that the megaliths were first constructed by dwellers of northwest France during the second half of the fifth millennium BC.” (b) Both Robert Hensey, who has studied and written about Newgrange [1766.6] and Mike Parker Pearson, Stonehenge’s leading, authority, have endorsed this idea of a French origin for megalith building(c).
The earliest suggestion that Atlantis may have been connected with the Armorican peninsula came from François Gidon in the 1930s when he proposed that Atlantis had been situated on an exposed Celtic Shelf stretching from Brittany to Ireland. Unfortunately, he dates the submergence of this land to between 3000 and 1200 BC, which was millennia after that part of the Celtic Shelf had been inundated by the Flandrian Transgression.
Jean Markle was convinced that the Carnac stones were connected with Atlantis. Recently, Sylvain Tristan followed the work of Jean Deruelle in supporting a megalithic Atlantis. Further support has come from Alfred deGrazia and Helmut Tributsch who saw Megalithic Europe as Atlantis with the island of Gavrinis in Brittany as its capital.
The American researcher, Hank Harrison, considers the Morbihan départment as a significant Atlantean location if not the home of its capital.
Reinoud deJonge proposes even greater significance for the Brittany megaliths with his claim that they record the Flood of Noah in 2344 BC(a).
A fairly lengthy illustrated paper regarding ancient catastrophes in Brittany is available online(d).
(a) See: Archive 2501
Tributsch, Helmut *
Helmut Tributsch (1943- ) was born in a small German-speaking enclave in Fruili in North East Italy. He was a Professor of Physical 
Chemistry from 1982 at the Free University of Berlin until his retirement in 2008. When his birthplace was destroyed in 1976 by an earthquake he began a study of animal behaviour prior to such events and their role as earthquake predictors, leading to the publication of Wenn die Schlangen erwachen (When the Snakes Awaken) in 1978.
His interests also extended to include Atlantis, regarding which, he published Die Gläsernen Türme von Atlantis[718] (The Glass Towers of Atlantis) in 1986. His view was that megalithic Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean constituted Atlantis, bounded by water on three sides and a little-known border to the east, it could be considered an island. Tributsch suggested that the island of Gavrinis near Carnac in Brittany had been the capital of this Atlantean civilisation.(c) Hank Harrison placed Atlantis in the same locality.
Tributsch dated the destruction of Atlantis to 2200 BC, a date also favoured by Anton Mifsud.
Further details regarding the content of Tributsch’s book, in English, are available on his website(a).
A more extensive article about the theories of Tributsch is available on the Atlantisforschung website with an English translation here(d).
(c) About Atlantis localization on Gavrinis – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) (English)
(d) Tributsch’s Atlantida Exegesis – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) (English)
Hancock, Graham
![Graham Hancock_thumb[1]](https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Graham-Hancock_thumb1.jpg)
Graham Hancock the well-known investigator of prehistoric mysteries has never discussed the Atlantis enigma in depth. In fact, he once remarked on BBC Television that he avoids using the word ‘Atlantis’ in his books “because most people when they hear the word Atlantis immediately think that they’re dealing with the lunatic fringe”.
Furthermore, he emphasises the potential value of myths as transmitters of historical facts, albeit distorted.
In his 1995 tome on civilisations submerged at the end of the last Ice Age, Fingerprints of the Gods [275.462] he briefly discusses the subject of Atlantis. He accepted that the Atlantic was not harbouring any lost continent, although he was seeking a continental-sized home for his vanished civilisation. Paul Heinrich has posted a review(v) of ‘Fingerprints’.
Similarly, in his earlier work, The Sign and the Seal [678.319], Hancock had clearly discounted the Atlantic as the home of Atlantis. At this point, he appeared to be considering the Antarctic location proposed by the Flem-Aths.
His book, Underworld [274] was published in 2002 and was followed by a TV programme, Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age, which was based on it. The latter evoked a highly critical review(s) from N.C. Flemming, who has written widely on maritime matters including sea-level changes and sunken cities [1682]. Hancock wrote an equally strong response(r) to this.
Hancock maintains an interesting website(a) that is regularly updated with contributions from a wide range of contributors. His bestselling Fingerprints of the Gods is now available online(b).
The other side of the coin is that Hancock’s evidence supporting his theories has been heavily criticised as flawed(g) and misleadingly presented(h).
Hancock “ regularly draws attention to what he considers mystical relationships between the Great Pyramid of Giza and the radius, circumference, and axial precession of the earth…….. Proponents of these “mystical” relationships contend, in addition to existing in the first place, that the relationships must be purposeful and therefore provide direct evidence of advanced capabilities in technology, mathematics, and precise astronomical observing techniques that scholars have long asserted were not available to humans when the pyramids were constructed.” These are among the opening remarks by Thomas W. Schroeder, who published two papers in 2019 criticising Hancock’s scholarship.(y-z)
E.J. de Meester who proposed an English location for Atlantis, before his website went offline, was critical of Graham Hancock’s hyperdiffusionist concept of Atlantis commenting that “In 1999 Discovery Channel broadcast a three-part series called ‘Quest for the lost Civilisation’.In it, Graham Hancock stated that the pyramids, Angkor Vat, Stonehenge, the stones of Carnac, the Nazca lines, temples in Mexico and the statues of Easter Island were all part of an ancient global civilisation of seafarers who were apparently obsessed by astrology. The temples of Angkor Vat (in Cambodia) were said to be built in the shape of the zodiac sign Draco, the pyramids of Gizeh in the shape of Sirius; the Sphinx is supposed to be looking at the sign of Leo. It’s all rather vague. Hard to say whether it’s nonsense or not. More information can be found in Hancock’s books, like ‘Fingerprints of the Gods’[0275] and ‘Heaven’s Mirror’ [0855] .” De Meester’s comments are still (2023) available on the archive.org website(ar).
For my part, I consider this hodgepodge of locations presented by Hancock as parts of his global civilisation to be utter nonsense. The sites listed above have little in common; Carnac and Stonehenge are probably the only two that might be considered to be related. Perhaps the most obvious weakness in his claim is the fact that some of the sites are separated by millennia. Easter Island, Angor Wat and Nazca were developed long after Atlantis was submerged.
Further criticism of Hancock’s scholarship has come from>>the late Garrett Fagan (1963-2017)<<, particularly in relation to his comments regarding Antarctica.(aa)
Jason Colavito has written(c) a critical review of Hancock’s work and his recent advocacy “for ayahuasca, a South American hallucinogen. Since taking the drug for his 2005 book Supernatural, Hancock has supported the concept that mind-altering substances give their users access to a spirit world where one can commune directly with the ‘gods’.”
In April 2015, Hancock was due to engage in a debate with Zahi Hawass on the subject of their conflicting views of ancient history. However, when Hawass saw that Hancock included an image of Robert Bauval in his presentation, he refused to continue with the arranged format(d)(t).
In September 2015, Hancock published his, Magicians of the Gods [1119], which worryingly sounds like a von Däniken book title! Already, he is trailing this publication with teasers, such as a claim that he has finally identified the ‘smoking gun’ that demonstrates that a cometary impact destroyed an advanced civilisation in the Antarctic 12,800 years ago(e) Shortly after the initial report was published, Hancock had to correct errors in it(f), the principal one being that the impact site was the North American ice cap NOT Antarctica. An interview with Hancock shortly before the publication of ‘Magicians’(n) is online as is also a review of the book itself(o). A full-length video lecture based on the book is available online(x).
Hancock also climbed aboard the Gobekli Tepe bandwagon, incorporating it along with Noah’s Ark and Atlantis into one narrative(p).
Hancock’s book also engages in scaremongering, with a sales-boosting prediction that an asteroid impact is possible in 2030 when the Earth once again enters the orbit of the remains of Encke’s Comet!
Jason Colavito’s critical review of ‘Magicians‘ is now online(j). A more favourable evaluation of his book is now available from Dr Jon Epstein of Greensboro College, who expresses some interesting views on the closed-mindedness of many academics(k). Epstein’s review prompted further comments from Colavito(l). Following correspondence between Epstein and Colavito, additional claims of academic conspiracy to block Hancock have emerged.
Michael Shermer, a professional sceptic, attacked Hancock’s ‘Magicians’ in a Scientific American article arguing first of all that, “no matter how devastating an extraterrestrial impact might be, are we to believe that after centuries of flourishing, every last tool, potsherd, article of clothing, and, presumably from an advanced civilization, writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash—was erased? Inconceivable.” (ab)
Hancock recently received the endorsement of the South African Professor of Philosophy, Bert Olivier, which swiftly produced a response from Colavito(q).
Hancock’s next book, America Before, published in April 2019, proposes that North America was inhabited 130,000 years ago and was home to an advanced civilisation that was destroyed by a cometary impact at the end of the Younger Dryas period, around 10,000 BC. The fact that this is contradicted by Plato does not seem to bother him. Hancock proposed cometary impact damage as the cause of Atlantis’ demise, Plato says flooding. I would prefer Plato’s account as he was nearly two and a half millennia nearer the event. Hancock claims that Atlantean survivors spread their alleged high-tech civilisation around the world. Plato does not describe Atlantis as any more advanced than any other culture. Hancock offers no tangible evidence for his claim.
When asked what he meant by ‘advanced’ Hancock revealed(u) that “I think we’re talking about a civilization – more than 12,000 years ago – which was as advanced as our civilization was, say in the late 18th century or early 19th century. In other words, they could navigate the world, they could explore the world, they could measure the world accurately, they had precise astronomy, they could create beautiful maps that were accurate in terms of latitude and longitude. That kind of level of civilization.”
In late 2022, Hancock had a TV series entitled Ancient Apocalypse transmitted on Netflix. It was, of course, joyously greeted by his fans, but received more muted reviews in other quarters(ad). Not unexpectedly Jason Colavito(af) and Thorwald C. Franke (Newsletter 206)(ae). Murdoch’s The Sun tabloids offered a voice(ac) for the cries of protest from academics. It appears that the series has been used as a multi-episode aggressive rant against conventional archaeology. Perhaps it was just the ayahuasca speaking.
In response, this week (Dec.2, 2022), the Society for American Archaeology published an open letter(ah) to Netflix and the television production house ITN requesting that they re-classify its new series Ancient Apocalypse as a work of fiction rather than a docuseries(ag). Eventually, Hancock responded with a lengthy article(al) described by Jason Colavito as ‘hysterical’(am), but in my view, it contains many interesting points.
The uproar over the Hancock-Netflix series continues unabated with Colavito offering the following addition to his website(ai) and a longer piece on The New Republic website(aj); “It has also sparked unparalleled outrage from archaeologists and journalists, resulting in dozens of think pieces decrying the show’s many false claims and illogical arguments, analyzing its racist implications, and declaring the series everything from “fishy” to the “most dangerous” show on Netflix. “Why has this been allowed?” asked Britain’s The Guardian. The answer to that seemed pretty obvious: Hancock’s son, Sean Hancock, is Netflix’s senior manager for unscripted originals.”
The Guardian newspaper (UK) took another perceived aspect of the series to accuse “Hancock – who describes himself as a journalist presumably to avoid being called a pseudo-scientist” – of taking “the story to a new controversial level in suggesting that survivors of such a deluge were the instigators of the great works of other civilisations, from Egypt to Mexico and Turkey to Indonesia. As (Flint) Dibble states, such claims reinforce white supremacist ideas. ‘They strip indigenous people of their rich heritage and instead give credit to aliens or white people.’ In short, the series promotes ideas of ‘race science’ that are outdated and long since debunked.”(ak).
On April 2023, Jason Colavito reported(an) “In a surprise move, Graham Hancock pulled out of June’s Cosmic Summit, a meeting of catastrophists in support of the theory that a comet hit the Earth at the end of the last Ice Age and destroyed a high-tech lost civilization. Atlantis speculator Jimmy Corsetti, who was also scheduled to speak, also said he would not be attending. Corsetti claimed he had been ‘removed’ against his will from the list of speakers, leaving the conference in chaos.” There is some suggestion that problems arose over a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Hancock offered the following explanation on his website(ao) “Serious concerns have been brought to my attention that has caused me to lose confidence in the fundamental philosophy and direction of this conference.”
In June 2023, Michael Shermer published an article in Skeptic magazine that attacked Hancock’s theories generally and the 2022 Netflix series in particular(ap).
The Netflix episode dealing with the Maltese megaliths has drawn criticism from archaeologists in Malta, one of whom appeared briefly in the episode and later implied that her appearance was “manipulated to suit the narrative that the series is trying to push.” (aq)
Archaeologist Flint Dibble agreed to go head-to-head with Graham Hancock on the popular Joe Rogan Experience in April 2024(as). This lengthy encounter is available on YouTube(at). Because the discussion lasted over four hours, Jason Colavito could only see and review parts of the show(au). I get the impression that the debate did not produce the fireworks anticipated by some. I also wonder why Dibble had to wear a now clichéd Indiana Jones fedora hat.
(a) https://www.grahamhancock.com
(b) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/egipto/fingerprintgods/fingerprintgods.htm#contents
(d) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockG15.php
(g) https://web.archive.org/web/20200225173834/http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/atlantis.html
(h) https://www.luckymojo.com/hancocklecture.html
(j) Magicians of the Gods Review – JASON COLAVITO (archive.org) *
(n) https://andrewgough.co.uk/interviews_hancock_2015/
(o) Archive 2904
(p) Gobekli Tepe, Noah’s Ark & Lost Atlantis – Collective Evolution (archive.org)
(r) https://grahamhancock.com/archive-underworld2/
(s) https://www.scribd.com/document/335992579/Nick-Flemming-Review-of-Flooded-Kingdoms-of-the-Ice-Age
(u) https://www.dailygrail.com/2019/04/watch-graham-hancock-discuss-his-new-book-america-before/
(v) The Cuicuilco Pyramid and Fingerprints of the Gods (archive.org)
(w) An Analysis of the Quality of Graham Hancock’s Science (hallofmaat.com)
(x) Magicians of the Gods Lecture by Graham Hancock at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey – YouTube
(aa) https://www.hallofmaat.com/meh/antarctic-farce/
(ab) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced-civilization-12-000-years-ago/
(ac) https://www.thesun.ie/news/9782110/wild-atlantis-theory-netlfix-documentary/
(ad) Lost city of Atlantis rises again to fuel a dangerous myth | Archaeology | The Guardian
(ae) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_newsl_archive.htm
(af) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-netflixs-ancient-apocalypse
(ah) saa-letter-ancient-apocalypse.pdf
(ai) Read My New Piece on “Ancient Apocalypse” in “The New Republic” (substack.com)
(aj) The Strange and Dangerous Right-Wing Freakout Over Ancient Apocalypse | The New Republic
(am) Graham Hancock Issues Response to Archaeology Association’s Open Letter – JASON COLAVITO
(an) Graham Hancock Pulls Out of Cosmic Summit, Replaced by Scott Wolter – JASON COLAVITO
(ao) https://grahamhancock.com/events/
(ar) https://web.archive.org/web/20090614050055/http://home-3.tiscali.nl/~meester7/engatlantis.html
(as) Why I Went on Rogan With Pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hancock (sapiens.org)
(at) Joe Rogan Experience #2136 – Graham Hancock & Flint Dibble – YouTube
Markale, Jean (L)
Jean Markale (1928-2008) was the pen-name of Jean Bertrand, a French writer and teacher who wrote extensively on a wide range of pre- Christian and medieval subjects. He presumed that there was a connection between Atlantis and the megalithic standing stones of Carnac in Brittany. Rather than solve these two mysteries, his book[470] would seem to deepen them. His scholarship has been seriously brought into question by his critics.